“[T]his race, I understand, Ted Kennedy will spend about $10 million dollars to be reelected…I think that’s wrong,” Romney said. “[T]o get that kind of money, you’ve got to cozy up as an incumbent to other people — all of the special interest groups who can go out there and raise money for you from their members — and that kind of relationship has an influence on the way that you’re going to vote.”

Romney also singled out fellow Republican Michael Huffington, a House member trying to win a Senate seat that same year. “I mean, you hear in California, Senator — Congressman Huffington, $25 million dollars going to that race.The kinds of demands that are being placed on the economics of running a campaign suggest an increasing power on the part of moneyed interest, and I think it’s wrong. And we’ve got to change it.”

Nowadays, of course, Romney speaks from a different script: He’d like to get rid of limits on campaign contributions to candidates. The Romney of ’94, were he to drop in today, might be mortified at the $74 million the candidate has raised for his current race — not to mention the $43.2 million raised by Restore Our Future, the super PAC supporting him; the Romney of today has encouraged people to give to the ostensibly independent group and has even appeared at a fundraiser for it.

But we might have to scrape ’94 Romney’s jaw off the ground were he to learn that some of the most generous donors to Romney 2012 and to Restore Our Future were Huffington donors way back when.

Contributor

Recipient

2012 Contributions

Perenchio, Jerry

Restore Our Future

$500,000

Leach, Howard

Restore Our Future

$100,000

Palmer, Geoff

Restore Our Future

$250,000

Simmons, Harold

Restore Our Future

$200,000

Tuttle, Robert

Restore Our Future

$50,000

Day, Robert & Kelly

Romney, Mitt

$5,000

Ourisman, Mandell

Romney, Mitt

$5,000

Leach, Howard & Gretchen

Romney, Mitt

$2,500

Lyon, William & Willa Dean

Romney, Mitt

$7,500

Argyros, Julia & George

Romney, Mitt

$5,000

Bren, Donald & Bridgette

Romney, Mitt

$5,000

Bechtel, Stephen & Elizabeth

Romney, Mitt

$5,000

Tuttle, Robert

Romney, Mitt

$5,000

Baxter, Frank

Restore Our Future

$5,000

Winnick, Gary

Romney, Mitt

$2,500

Palmer, Geoff & Anne

Romney, Mitt

$5,000

Simmons, Harold & Annette

Romney, Mitt

$5,000

Foley, Thomas

Romney, Mitt

$2,500

Schwab, Charles

Romney, Mitt

$2,500

Smead, Larry

Romney, Mitt

$2,500

Draper, Thimothy

Romney, Mitt

$2,500

Flanigan, Peter

Romney, Mitt

$2,500

Baxter, Frank

Romney, Mitt

$2,500

One of these common donors, Howard Leach, illustrates just the sort of influence that ’94 Romney lamented. Leach — who, along with his wife, has given $5,000 to Romney and $100,000 to Restore Our Future– was a member of “Team 100,” a group of wealthy donors who each gave $100,000 to the Republican National Committee to help elect George H.W. Bush as president. In February, 1992, Leach held a fundraising luncheon that brought in $1 million for Bush’s re-election effort.

At the lunch, as Leach told Frontline, the president asked what pressing concerns California was facing. One complaint was about the lack of water flowing to agricultural interests in the southern part of the state. Nine days after the event, Bush reversed Department of Interior policy, issuing an emergency order to release 326 billion gallons of federally subsidized water to help central and southern California agriculture, including two ranches connected to Team 100 members, raising ecological concerns about the shallow waters.

The outflow caused river levels to fall, threatening fish like the chinook salmon, which died en masse in the warmer shallows.When Congress later passed a bill to reverse the order, agribusiness urged the president to veto it.

Leach, for his part, denied that his relationship with the president had any causal link to the decision to divert the waters. He and two other donors to Huffington who’ve also given to support Romney 2012 — Frank Baxter and George Argyros — would later go on to become ambassadors under President George W. Bush. After that, he would also become a major contributor to the 501(c)(4) group Freedom’s Watch, which was formed to counter the activities of liberal groups like Media Matters. The group’s executive vice president was one Carl Forti, who is now president of Restore Our Future and political director of another major super PAC, American Crossroads — to which the Leaches have given $100,000 in this election cycle.

Other one-time Huffington donors have contributed to Romney and Restore Our Future as recently as February 2012, according to new filings with the Federal Election Commission. William and Willa Dean Lyon gave $5000 to Romney’s campaign, while Harold Simmons and Jerry Perenchio gave $100,000 and $500,000 respectively to Restore Our Future.

Former Huffington donors did not give exclusively to Romney-affiliated groups. They gave generously to the Republican party, to candidates, and to other candidate-affiliated super PACs. Huffington donors (or their spouses) who are still active contributors in this cycle have given an additional $1.2 million to Republican party committees and $14.5 million to Republican super PACs. Recently, Rick Santorum and his family went to Texas to personally thank former Huffington donor Annette Simmons for her $1 million contribution to the Red, White and Blue Fund, a super PAC that supports Santorum but is legally barred from coordinating with him.

Robert joined the Center in August 2011 as the outside spending and PACs researcher. In 2012, he started CRP's Politically Active Nonprofits project, which tracks the financial networks of "dark money" groups, mainly 501(c)(4) and 501(c)(6) organizations. In 2014, he won, with colleague Viveca Novak, the Society of Professional Journalists' Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service in Online Journalism for a series of stories published on OpenSecrets Blog. Robert has a masters in U.S. foreign policy from American University. Before coming to Washington, D.C., he lived, studied and worked for several years in France and Taiwan, traveling extensively in Europe and Asia. He is originally from Charleston, SC.

Media Contact

Viveca Novak
(202) 354-0111
press@crp.org

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